First off, I will be speaking in the Oak Room of the public library in San Mateo, California, on May 5th at 7:00 pm. The library is at 55 West 3rd Avenue. If you are in the area, I would love to meet you!<\/p>\n
On March 16, 2016, Poppie wrote, Has anyone ever redeemed a bad guy? The villains in my fanfic story have once been good, then they were turned evil by dark magic, now they need to become good again. How can I make that happen in a convincing, non-magical way?<\/em><\/p>\n Several of you weighed in.<\/p>\n Christie Powell: I did a short story where the main character is extremely angry. It grows through the story until she snaps. She set a house on fire (magically) without realizing her little brother is inside. So she has to save him, and as she does she sees the consequences of her anger tearing everything apart, and that helps her to set her anger aside and start to forgive the people who hurt her. \u201cThe Christmas Carol\u201d is a good example of a book with this rebirth plot. Even kid movies like Frozen or the Lego movie use it.<\/em><\/p>\n If this is a really bad person, I\u2019d think it would have to be something pretty dramatic to be convincing. Shakespeare got away with \u201cI ran into some monks and converted and now I\u2019m going to make everything right again,\u201d but that was a long time ago. Realizing that their actions are harming someone they care about seemed like a good one.<\/em><\/p>\n Bookworm: Poppie, here are some ideas:<\/em> Your other characters could:<\/em> If you want to be extra convincing, maybe a character can rant about it to the villains, giving the villains new POVs.<\/em><\/p>\n Jenalyn Barton: My favorite example of a villain gone good is Zuko from Avatar: the Last Airbender. It is a TV show, so they had a bit more time to work with his character, but there is still a lot to learn from it. I\u2019ve watched the show over a dozen times now (yes, I\u2019m slightly obsessed), and I\u2019ve observed that Zuko\u2019s character arc basically went through three stages: Establishment, Fall, and Redemption. In the first season, the story focuses on establishing his character. You will notice that even though he is a villain, the creators of the show waste no time in creating sympathy for the character. In fact, they do this from the start, by explaining his motives and giving him a rival villain who is even worse than he is. His back story is established in the first season as well, helping us understand why he is so determined to capture Aang. In the second season he has a fall from grace, where he loses his status and is forced to live the life of a fugitive. He learns some lessons on humility and such because of this, then has his major fall when he betrays his uncle in his attempt to regain his status. In the third season his character goes through redemption, when he realizes that having his status back has not made him happy at all, and that true honor comes from being loyal and doing the right thing despite the opposition. He then switches sides, and spends the rest of the season earning the trust of those he once hunted. By the end of the show, his change from bad to good feels ultimately satisfying. If he had skipped any one of these three stages, his change of heart would have felt hasty and contrived.<\/em><\/p>\n Emma: One of my favorite methods I\u2019ve heard of goes like this:<\/em> Now, this does involve a relationship of some kind, and it would really work best on a quest story. But of course, the hero doesn\u2019t have to change the bad guy. The bad guy could change because of his\/her new found relationship with another good character. Anyway, I just like this idea because it highly involves sympathetic\/likable characters, and would work best in a quest (my personal favorite type of story). It also doesn\u2019t have to involve magic, and can be very convincing.<\/em><\/p>\n These are great!<\/p>\n I\u2019m assuming that the original black magic spell can\u2019t simply be lifted. Here are some more strategies that may help:<\/p>\n \u2219 If we can, it\u2019s often best to work from character, so we might think about what\u2019s least bad about each of our villains. For example, many years ago, before I became a writer, I had a bad boss: egotistical, self-centered, self-aggrandizing, self-important\u2013self, self, self! The only admirable quality I could detect in him was generosity. If he were a character and I wanted to turn him, I\u2019d work on that, because generosity suggests a smidgen of empathy\u2013and empathy is villain poison.<\/p>\n \u2219 I notice a common thread in most of the post comments, particularly in Emma\u2019s: relationships. The villain is changed by her connection to another character, who isn\u2019t a villain. I used this in my Princess Tale, For Biddle\u2019s Sake<\/em>. The fairy Bombina, the villain, takes the child Parsley from her parents. Bombina\u2019s evil stems from the joy she takes in turning people into frogs, for which she has been jailed by the fairy queen. When the story begins, she\u2019s just gotten out. All this is lighthearted, unless you\u2019re a current frog\/former person. What starts to turn Bombina around is her love–which takes her by surprise–for Parsley. I won\u2019t give away the turning point, but by the end Bombina is thoroughly reformed. She’s still sharp and prickly–we don’t want to make her unrecognizable–but she’s given up her frog misdeeds.<\/p>\n So our villain can care about another living thing, which doesn\u2019t have to be a person, can even be a plant. The villain\u2019s beloved is a tiny crack in her shell of badness. We can make the story widen the crack until our villain finds it impossible to keep being evil.<\/p>\n \u2219 We may be able to change him through reason. Our villain is very smart, but he hasn\u2019t thought through the world view that underlies his villainy. If we can undermine his assumptions, we may turn him around.<\/p>\n \u2219 We can get to her through her self-interest. She wants power, for example. We may be able to show her through events in our story that she\u2019s more likely to gain power by being a humanitarian. It may be a pretense at first, but we can nudge her toward more honest kindness with our other\u00a0strategies.<\/p>\n \u2219 We can give him a flaw that we can exploit. Maybe he\u2019s vain. In the fairy tale \u201cPuss \u2018N\u2019 Boots,\u201d for example, Puss works on the ogre\u2019s vanity to get him to turn himself into a mouse. In a more serious story, we can use our villain\u2019s vanity to our MC\u2019s advantage, too. When he discovers the consequences of his vanity\u2013or of any flaw–he takes the first step toward change.<\/p>\n \u2219 Magic has been disallowed, but maybe other outside interventions can be brought to bear. For example, her brain could be changed surgically or with medicine (modern or from another time period) or through hypnosis. If we go this route, we have to establish early that such a thing is possible, and there may be suspense over whether the procedure will work on her.<\/p>\n \u2219 If these characters were once good, we may be able to persuade them to remember their old selves, as long as their memories are intact.<\/p>\n \u2219 Here\u2019s a weird one. Let\u2019s call it The Silver-Lining Effect. The bad boss I mentioned above had the good effect of spurring me to find another job, which was a much better fit for me. I think this is common, a good outcome arising from bad behavior. Our villain, who is smart, realizes that his destructive actions may hurt some, but they also strengthen the forces arrayed against him, which is the opposite of his intention. Diabolically, he decides he has to embrace virtue. Then, he can be brought to turn truly decent\u2013or not, if we want to keep his evil in reserve.<\/p>\n The Silver-Lining Effect is an example of the complexity in moral issues, which we can use to create layered stories. An example I think about regularly is homelessness and the beggars that one sees on the streets of many cities, especially in decent weather. I\u2019m a big walker, often in New York City. New York, to its credit, is a great walking city, so it\u2019s also a great place to panhandle. If I have change, if I\u2019m not in a gigantic hurry, I’ll drop a quarter in a beggar\u2019s cup. When I don\u2019t, I feel guilty. When I do, I feel uncertain. I definitely haven\u2019t changed anyone\u2019s life with a quarter, and will my quarter go for cigarettes or worse? And I don\u2019t make the interaction human, either. I drop in the coin and move on, rarely saying anything, rarely making eye contact. So I wind up guilty again. Was this a good deed or not? Upstanding people can argue both sides.<\/p>\n With villains we sometimes bring in moral complexity by revealing backstory. There are other ways as well. If we\u2019re in our villain\u2019s POV, we can show her thoughts and feelings, which can be different from what the reader expects. But even if we\u2019re not in her heart and mind, we can demonstrate what lies beneath through dialogue and action. For example, the villain may be kind to his henchpeople; opposition is what brings out his despicable side.<\/p>\n Here are four prompts:<\/p>\n \u2219 Dark magic has made villains of Robin Hood, his merry band, and Maid Marian. Think of an un-magical way to turn all of them back at a single stroke. Write the scene in which this happens. You may need to start at an earlier point to set this up. If you\u2019re inspired, write the entire story.<\/p>\n \u2219 Pick one of the characters above, could be Robin Hood or a band member or Maid Marian. Develop the character and work the transformation gradually.<\/p>\n \u2219 Reform the evil queen in \u201cSnow White,\u201d using her character as we know her: jealous and rageful. Use one or more of the approaches suggested above, or another that you come up with, but no magic allowed.<\/p>\n \u2219 Using the complexity of moral questions, create a switcheroo. In the course of an investigation, make Sherlock Holmes evil and Moriarty good, and totally confuse Dr. Watson!<\/p>\n Have fun, and save what you write!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" First off, I will be speaking in the Oak Room of the public library in San Mateo, California, on May 5th at 7:00 pm. The library is at 55 West 3rd Avenue. If you are in the area, I would love to meet you! On March 16, 2016, Poppie wrote, Has anyone ever redeemed a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[35],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=729"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":730,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729\/revisions\/730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nYour villains could:<\/em>
\n\u2219 notice something your good character(s) did that made him\/her see the error of his\/her ways<\/em>
\n\u2219 get a nightmare that snaps them out of it<\/em><\/p>\n
\n\u2219 slap him\/her (literally or figuratively) out of it<\/em><\/p>\n
\nThe bad guy is forced to help the good guy in some way (either the bad guy is captured, and is literally forced, or because of unfortunate circumstances has to help the good guy\u2026 This could go in a million different directions). While helping the good guy, the bad guy either realizes 1) There is no reason to remain evil, 2) They actually agree with some of the things the hero does\/says\/believes, 3) They actually have come to care for the hero because of their kindness (whether this is through a brother-brother relationship or a romantic one is up to you). Because of a realization, perhaps the bad guy actually saves the good guy without really realizing what they\u2019re doing. This could be a literal rescue or an emotional \u201crescue\u201d, or anything along those lines. The bad guy comes to the conclusion after the rescue that they no longer want to be a bad guy anymore, and end up the hero\u2019s sidekick, romantic interest, mentor, or even the hero him\/herself.<\/em><\/p>\n